The Give and Take

There was snow falling, so maybe it was February, just beyond her first trimester, when we talked about fear. A physician herself, she was far too familiar with the turns for the worse. Hand over womb, she knew she walked a fragile trail.

Her head knew to pray instead of worry. But it's hard when your head is full of textbooks and your heart incubates a soul. She also knew the Father says to trust. Because He said so. Because I Am. So daily she chipped at anxiety with the strength of His promises, until the snow and ice disappeared.

And yesterday in the bright hot of summer, joy sprung unchecked as her healthy baby girl inhaled life.

I squealed so loudly at the news I woke up my sleeping toddler. It takes a wild joy to care nothing of naptime ending prematurely.

But.

Several hours later there was news from another friend about another little girl. This baby grew outside the womb only ten months before she was lost to the grave. Her last breath taken.

I choked on tears when I read her mother's words. She also knew the Father says to trust. Because He said so. Because I Am. And how could it be she was already trusting? Though He had taken and not given? Though the turn for the worse was hers to trod?

Perhaps she could trust because she believes that it is the same hand that gives and takes away.

In the giving, His hand offers Joy, Blessing, Grace.
In the taking, His hand offers Comfort, Sustainment, Strength.
And in the holding of His hand, these friends, you and I, continue a path that may bend with blessing or curve in pain.

The exact course matters not as much as the trusting of the Giver-Taker, the trusting that we belong on the very path in which He has placed us. Be it to cry for joy or sob in grief.